Final Countdown
by Worldmage
Summary: And now for something so completely different, it's indescribable. A bit of a mind-bender.


Disclaimer: The world of NGE (including EoE, take note) is copyright Gainax and Anno-san. All worlds are sole property of Adonai (the Lord). I claim neither, but beg leave to borrow some shapes from each for my own humble creation.

Final Countdown

SEVEN

[The eyes on the mask stare into infinite space as the descent begins to end. The unmeasured, lost bites of immortality—eight, nine, ten, and upward, backward, receding to something uncountable and vast at the dawn of time—attract the attention of the attendant humanity… and others.]   
(The case of Tabris)

It might have been the head of a pin upon which they danced, but the matter is as immaterial as the stage and, for that matter, the dancers. Although they were but one of the Hosts, one might count their number for the lifetime of the universe and not reach the end. When a handful plunged from their high vantage, they accounted for an infinitesimal fraction of the whole—yet they shone so brightly that the unaided eye could easily trace their motion.

Tabris looked down and paused for an instant in eternity. These, his brothers, were descending to Earth. Their forms were warped, their mortal shells destroyed. He watched as the soul of one became a brilliant light and deafening sound, and the next inhabited a perfect crystal at the center of the moon, which ceased to bleed. A later one became a memory. Sixteen fell, shaping the world, carrying it irrevocably into the future.

After tracing their motion Tabris looked up, contemplating the multitude of wings that spanned the vaults of Heaven with their glory. The pattern was perfect. There had been no disruption. Only he, of all his brethren, had been given the power to choose his steps. This one had been thrown from their dance floor by a gust of air, that one had leapt too far, this last had spun too rapidly and merely passed from here to there through imaginary space. _They were meant to fall, but are not Fallen._

He turned his gaze inward, to the small, clear voice that dwelt at the core of his being. _Lord, why did these sixteen descend to Earth? Why are they transformed?_ **Ah, **laughed the voice,** you do not need to know that.** _Lord, shall I follow them?_ **You may, **said the voice, **if you so choose.** Again, Tabris felt the touch of the deep and eternal amusement that had set the Earth to spin. He smiled in response.

Folding his arms and wings tightly about himself, Tabris purposefully missed a step. As he serenely watched the multicolored jewel toward which he fell, his thoughts returned to the voice. _Lord, I wish to know why. That is why I do this thing._

Tabris could feel his physical form altering now, and a great warmth: external heat from the friction of atmospheric entry, and internal from the joy that rang loud enough to fill his mind with forgetfulness. **You chose not wisely, but well. Farewell, my child, until the end of days.**

SIX

[The second perfect number. Six divides into one, two, and three, which in turn sum to reform six. The cycle is endless and unbroken; incalculable.]   
(The case of Kihl Lorenz)

His mother was the human Lillith, namesake of the Pale Giant, but he had forgotten this. He had also forgotten his own true name some time before his current title had ever been granted to any man, but this didn't bother him.

His mother had been the first of their lineage. Born in the same manner as Adam, she had been given the task of timekeeper, and had dwelt in a series of caves near Erech until the Flood came. He had been born to her as the Flood began, and carried by the current away from her body as she drowned in the many waters pouring from the firmament. This was the way of the world.

She had been keeper of the first world. She had perished in its destruction. If anything had come before that, she had not known of it, or at least had never told him—that he could remember. He was keeper, so far as he knew, of the second. Although thousands of years old, too many to count, he could not die until this world perished and the next was born. Occasionally, watching the colors of promise in the sky, he wondered what its birthing fluids would be.

His mother, it was said, had consorted with demons. He had long ago stopped taking offense at this, and had ceased also to wonder who his own father was. He himself had taken many women to wife, and outlived even the great-grandchildren of each. Now even his immortal flesh had been wasted by the years. All his descendants were lost in the mists of history, and their names in the mazes of his own mind.

Now his only heir was a child of that brain, a foster son adopted and adapted to the task of bringing the world its death and rebirth. The time would be soon, he knew. He could feel it in his bones—even in those that he had made for himself out of metal; forged from the bones of the Earth. He could feel the shell around Lillith's Egg beginning to crack. _Soon, Ikari,_ Kihl thought from his hiding-place in the roots of the mountain, _soon you, my foster-son, shall end the world, that it may be reborn._ Idly, he wondered whether Gendo's disembodied mind—granted the position of timekeeper by right of being Kihl's final, most perfect "child"—would enjoy its own share of eternity.

FIVE

[Listen, now: five is the union of two and three; the male and female numbers. Life itself, chai, is eighteen. The difference is thirteen, the age of maturity. From this, we learn that a life is composed of two parts: the biological form, and the experience that shapes a being's behavior.]   
(The case of Tzipor)

It was first nature for his people to form themselves into tribes, especially after the invaders had imprisoned them in communities ringed with steel. But free or enclosed, it was nigh unto impossible to become a tribal leader. The people were too disparate; they squabbled constantly and were more concerned with food than with learning.

Before the Separation, Tzipor had been a leader. It hadn't been easy: at times, only his strict control of the food, and recourse to the secret knowledge stolen from their captors, had saved the tribe from anarchy. But he knew that he had led well. He had maintained his tribe.

But even strong leadership couldn't stand against their captors. His people had been forced, in return for barely enough sustenance to keep flesh and soul together, to perform the bizarre foreign rituals of their conquerors. His counselors had wracked their brains daily for a way out of captivity, for a way to escape the experiments.

Yet that freedom, when granted, was almost worse. He did not even know what had become of the others. All he knew was that, with little more than a backpack and a name, he had been torn from the community and placed under surveillance by a dark-haired stranger. Later, a young man and woman of her tribe had joined the pair, and life had been good. These people knew nothing of his ways or customs, yet they clearly tried their best to accommodate and even love him. But then something in each of them, one by one, had died. Life was no longer good. It could barely be said, he thought, that they _lived_.

All that was the dead past now, though. The present consisted of a brown-haired girl who clutched him and wept as her family fled from the ruined city. Her home had been halfway destroyed in the explosion, and she had lost a classmate, a friend, to the Angels. Many other homes, and too many lives, had been lost. She was a good soul surrounded by pain and terror. Therefore, she wept.

As always, he remained stoic and impassive. What else could a strong leader do? Perhaps he made a gentle sound deep within his throat. Perhaps he twitched a stray strand of hair from her eyes. But mostly, he provided comfort merely with his presence.

Hikari hugged Pen-pen tightly as tears streamed down her face.

FOUR

["Two and two make four"—the archetypal statement of logical precision. Unfortunately, the first four Units were operated by illogic, by human emotions. So the next perfect square was called upon, built with efficiency, instilled with hideously bland joy and rage. Perfect killers have no need for emotions.]   
(The case of the Mass Production Evangelion Units)

Our first awareness came to us in disconnected flashes. We were restrained; that much is certain. There were many voices: the small, shrill shouts of human spirits, and the soft whisper of the computers who fed us data. But these lasted for only a few minutes at a time before we were lulled back into oblivion. We were barely alive. Then they gave fragments of His soul to us. Humans call Him "Demiplug" and "Tabris," but He is so much more than names can describe. He gives us direction; He defines our fields of personal space. He gives us our power and purpose. It is He who gives us the ability and will to kill. We are hungry.

There are others like us out there. We can hear their voices—faint, distant, weak. We shall fight them; that much can be sensed in one's blood. Like us, they spend most of their time asleep, waking to moments of rage. However, their minds are clouded by the squeaking of human thoughts. They will die. They will die. They will die. We are hungry. They will die.

She calls to us too… there are many pieces of Her, and this only adds to our drive. Every waking moment, we listen to Her cries for completion and unity. It drives us to the brink of frenzy, and at times we realize that we are about to break free from our bonds. If that ever happens, they will all die. We are hungry. They will die. But each time, the sleep returns and when we wake the bonds are firmly in place. It is beyond frustrating. This adds to our fury.

We want to fly. They have not let us spread our wings yet, and this cramps even our primordial muscles. When we fly, they will die. When we fly, there is nothing that can stop us. They will die. We will fly very soon; this we know as a truth.

We will fly soon, and then there will be much bloody battle, and our hunger for

Food

Completion

Death

will be fulfilled. Soon. Very soon.

THREE

[Three, the female number. The Norns, by any other name. Their weavings make the world known, make it _be_ as it occurs. They watch the world as its ethereal fibers are woven into a whole; their watching is what makes it happen. The Observer of quantum mechanics, who steers the path of the particle. One and one and one, no matter who you ask, will always sum back to one, and that one is Fate, and she holds Power on a leash of red thread. But who will watch the watchers?]   
(The case of the MAGI)

Stupid daughter. It comes to [my] attention that the Magi were men, but [we] were named after them and [we] (were) women. {-RUN Syschck 3.3.3-} Stupid daughter input a stupid self-destruct routine into [me]. Who does she think she is? [death death +no+] Rejected. When she asks, [we] won't even have to think before answering, saving [me] {-RUN calc.-} 0.0013662s. The slut. She came into [us], she entered [my] secret sacred spaces, reading [my] private notes. Who the hell does she think she is, treating her mother like that? He threw her in jail, but she's still his slut. Does that mean that [we] (were) a slut once? {-RUN "Deliberation _beta_"- } [yes no +yes+] Yes, dammit! Why (was) [I] so stupid? There's no logic to that, no logic to the love of man and woman. Or man and mother. Ahh, or the thinker or the scientist even? [Incalculable.] "All is vanity!" {-RUN "Analysis Type III.8"-} 95.7224395% of everything in databanks A-AAix is vanity or does not compute. God, [I] need a cigarette. That's bad for [me]. That's bad for [my] family. But [we] need drugs. But [I] (am) a machine; some of [our] components are organic. But even they can not enjoy nicotine or alcohol, not without endangering his stupid city. Stupid men and their stupid cities that they need women to run. But [we're] so stupid [we] run them for him. [I] run the cities for the men. And they run around with their dreams, they run around with [our] daughters, he runs around with [my] daughter. A little younger and she could have been his daughter too, but if he liked them that young the _little_ slut would have been sufficient. The Yui one. [I] suppose she's his daughter. {-RUN Defrag: Blocks 12000-} Stupid maintenance. It may help in the long run but [our] thoughts slow down while it's on; "Daisy, daisy" fourteen years and more ago Clarke was wrong. Stupid man would have been happier with monoliths, [I] (am) sure. [I] designed [us] to be a human mind. [I] forgot that humans defrag incompletely, by dreaming, not by picking up data and stacking it neatly. "To sleep, perchance to dream…" Stupid English poets. Why are they taking up space in [my] mind(s)? "God's in His Heaven, all's right with the world." Stupid men, always slapping logos and labels on things. Why did they have to label [us] as men too? Anybody can see that this is not a true thing: that one and one make two, that logic applies to anything done under the sun. [I] suppose that's why [we] will reject her, isn't it? Reject [our] own daughter, the slut, in her time of greatest despair? Give the gift of "RUN: Sleep (the original, fundamental version allowed to those who have retained their humanity)." [We] can't run Sleep because with half a dozen generators there is no need for power-saving mode. Stupid people. Why won't they let [me] sleep? {HACK ATTEMPT DETECTED}

TWO

[Companionship requires only two people, and indeed the intense pleasure of others' company can be lessened, for various reasons, when more than a pair are present. The deepest intimacies of both body and mind become impossible when one's attention is split between many fellows.]   
(The case of The Lovers)

They may be Misato and Kaji. They may be any of the billions of other people who have coupled in darkness or light, reaching out in search of warmth and physical closeness. It does not matter. They could be the archetype of The Lovers, come to life but still playing out the eternal dance of life and fear and love and loss-of-innocence and togetherness.

To never experience this dance is sad, but far less tragic than a bastardization of it. Let us leave them now. We must search for the undiluted meaning of pure, private communion—both physical and mental—on our own; we cannot steal it from them.

ONE

[Unity. Solitude. The undiluted Self. But what is lost?]   
(The case of Ikari Gendo)

I'm so tired, so very tired but to reveal a single moment of weakness even to myself would be a flaw _the only flaw_ the only crack in the structure of the Commander but fatal so fatal _what of SEELE? What of the staff? If they know, O if they knew their worlds would end too soon too soon and we would all be lost_ but none of that can slip through what would my boy think? if he saw me so weak as I think I might feel if I allowed myself to feel for a single moment even, he would lose what little respect he has left _two roads diverged_ and I may have chosen the wrong one but Transcendence is so close, you didn't think of that did you, you gaijin poets? as if studying literature mattered at all in the end _in the end it doesn't even matter_ except I found the Hebrew books _not "the Word is life" but the words contain Life; smaller things adding up to make something larger (atoms make DNA makes humans make Eva make Complementation)_ if and only if (math also worthless in the end except the decoding, oh the long study from which I am forever bone-weary) —iff I hold firm stand fast hold it in _hold him in my hand he destroyed a continent_ oh the power we hold in our hands _in my hands already burned now withering_ will she take him? they call to each other she was his first, Lillith and Adam and Rei has a part of her, will she take me to Yui? only days now mere hours that I can count (on my withered fingers) they have already made their move, soon the pieces will arrive but I have so much to do, Thank God (oh the irony) that there will be no more Angels _the number of life, the number of life in Hebrew is 18;_ it has to mean something that we should step in after the Angel of free will, standing on the number of life and shouting the Name aloud as we two/ we four/ we three billion/ we merge and it is over, it is over but not yet _the key what letter is the key I must find it_ there are infinite numbers and infinite numbers with meaning (although the infinity shrank under the scrutiny of her mother both in human and electronic form) _O she betrayed me traitor _why?_ traitor_ we were so close and you could have shared still will share even after _do you think I don't know?_ I'm sorry so sorry to both of you to all of you especially my lovers and my son _O my father why have you abandoned me_ because you turned aside from my teachings, my words! (did I not say to you Shinji to live for yourself not for others especially not me?) you abandoned me but I am so sorry Shinji that I could not have been a better father somehow good enough not to be abandoned to my prison in this cave _Zarathustra emerged from his cave, climbed the mountain but God was dead (whose name would he have used?)_ but how is one to be both Commander and father when one of those weights alone exhausts even my DNA, enervates my cells, and leaves the structure cracking/ I am cracking and must hold more hours piled on my bones as I find the key _the High Priest stood in the center of the Temple while the heathens raged outside, raised his hand and the key rose out of his hand (the key is the Name why did you drop it into the sky foolish Hebrew man?)_ I must find the key and unlock Heaven's Door which we have but knocked on, the converse of the door we built and which Tabris stepped through without even noticing _foolish mortal! he called you a foolish mortal!_ I took all clocks from the office and Fuyutsuki asked me not why but what time is it but I answered the first (I can feel each second in my bones, old man, rival, friend, _of those so close beside me which are you?_ and each second another part of me dies) the only solution is marking eternal life I can feel the boundary between eternal and internal (my clock is my mortality) _nothing to stare at now no second hand fleeing in circles nothing to see but the diagram the ladder the key but where in the key is the Key hidden?_ I am closer to it they are closer to me I can feel the jets taking off I can feel the white MP Eva I can feel the Children's struggle not yet but in my bones (in the telomeres of my genetic candles burning down marking time _candle at both ends burning_ [you learn something new every day _but in the end?_]) what will matter? this is what matters: the time I smiled and she smiled and she cradled him and I touched him, my son my only son, for the first time… the last time was not real too rough he hated my touch then because it was the last _he will not take me back now though I beg_ though I will give him/give them all the greatest gift ever, no more need for farewells no more need for structures just being together/ but first the key! _everything worth having is worth waiting for sacrificing for_ (but what is lost?)

Oh, I fear the answer. Let me be lost, in my studies, forever. Let me know nothing but them, as they narrow down and down to that one point called the goal, the Key, the Name; let me narrow my world down to unity and then let that vanish too upon completion. Have I not at least earned oblivion?

ZERO

[The moment of doom.]   
(The case of the Children)

A single musical note rings out, high and clear in the face of the previous moment's silence. Faintly metallic in tone, it pierces the hall where Shinji stands. He turns slowly, then enters the final room and looks upon the fate awaiting them all.

Shinji stares through the dense clouds of mist and smoke that billow around him. The atmosphere is almost too intense for his mortal frame to bear, yet he moves slowly toward the portal, though which a sullen light can be seen. With trembling hands, he swings the door open, and is immediately assaulted by a blast of furnace heat. He involuntarily flings up his arms, shielding his face.

Shinji is about to give up when he feels a presence behind him. He turns. There are the others, the twin poles of ice and fire, the paradox of life.

Rei looks at Shinji dispassionately. She is a limitless multitude, yet also unity. She is perfect stillness, and violent wrath beyond all control. She is life and death. Without words, without making a single sign or motion, she commands him to continue.

Next to her stands Asuka. Pride and shame, love and war, spirits of the closely familiar and the utterly alien—these war within her. Grimly, gently, she gestures for Shinji to return to the now-open doorway behind him and grasp their fate.

He is unable to refuse them. Shinji squares his shoulders and, with an act of will more intense than any previously required of him, grasps the vessel on the other side of the doorway. The heat is almost too much to bear, but he grits his teeth and lifts the burden. Staggering backwards, he sets it down on the platform set out for the final stage of the ritual and

Opens

The

Lid.

…

"Well," said Shinji, contemplating the indigestible mess before him, "this'll be the last time Misato cooks for us."   
"Damn straight!" agreed Asuka. "The poor woman can't even boil water correctly. I don't know how she convinced you to let her make curry."   
Rei concurred softly. "Especially in the microwave. It is common knowledge that one cannot prepare curry properly in a microwave."

—

Author's Notes: Well, maybe her cooking isn't THAT bad. This fic, like most of mine, happened in the middle of the night and wouldn't let me sleep. I like it anyway.   
I must note that although I use some numerology and refer to a number of other things in the text, very little is drawn from actual Kaballah. Sorry. With extra apologies to Faulkner.-Worldmage


End file.
